


Tinsel

by Westgate (Harkpad)



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Huddling For Warmth, M/M, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-30
Updated: 2014-11-30
Packaged: 2018-02-27 12:28:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2692991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harkpad/pseuds/Westgate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stuck in an old barn waiting for a ride, Clint tries to distract a very, very cold Phil with a memory of their first Christmas together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tinsel

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flightinflame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flightinflame/gifts).



> flightinflame requested huddling for warmth and remembering a holiday together. Hope you like it!

Clint remembers barns, and hay, and being cold enough to venture into the stall with the big horses just so he could keep warm for a night. It was never really comforting, though. There was always the danger of the animals stepping on him or the trainer finding him and beating him, so it’s not like a rare good memory is being tainted by freezing to death with Phil in an abandoned barn in Croatia on Christmas Eve.

“Clint, look at me,” Phil says, but his voice is as brittle as the wind cutting through the cracks in the old barn walls. “I think we should move. Find somewhere better.”

Clint looks over at him and sees his pale as paste skin, his eyes squinted against the icy air, his arms clenching his torso in an attempt to hold some heat in. Clint leans closer, throws his legs apart, pulls Phil against his chest and wraps his arms around him. Phil shudders against him and buries his head under Clint’s chin like a child.

“I want to go home,” Phil whispers, and worry spikes through Clint’s whole body. Phil’s too cold, too tired, to worn out to be Agent Coulson any more.

They’d completed their assignment, but had lost their equipment and position in the firefight they were in at the end of the op, and Clint had used his last arrow to blow the car they’d been using from a distance so no one could trace the fight to SHIELD. They’d been chased on foot to the edge of the town, and shot at by the locals angry at the disruption of their village, so they’d decided that running was their only option. The problem was that the town was in the middle of nowhere, nestled against a mountain and forty miles from the nearest city. They’d walked four hours before they found the barn, Clint contacted SHIELD for extraction, and now they waited.

“Phil, we gave SHIELD our position. We can’t change it. Besides, there’s absolutely no shelter out there against this wind. We need to stay here. SHEILD will be here in two hours, less if we’re lucky.” He rubbed his hand up and down Phil’s back.

“Too cold. Walking would help.”

“No,” Clint answered. “We’re staying.” He squeezed Phil tighter against him, and knew that he was playing his strength card. Phil didn’t have the energy to fight him much. He wrapped his feet around Phil’s waist, getting him as close as he could.

“Hey,” he whispered into Phil’s hair. “Remember our first Christmas together?”

There was a pause, and then Phil mumbled into Clint’s tac jacket, “First one we knew each other or first one we were together?”

Clint smiled at the question. “Well, since the first one we knew each other I hid in my bunk every second I wasn’t working and you tried to lure me out with promises of eggnog, which just sounded gross, and good food, which just wasn’t enough to justify hanging out with strangers who thought I was too stupid to even exist, well. I was talking about our first one together.”

“You ended up liking eggnog,” Phil replied, and Clint heard a lilt in his voice instead of the cold emptiness of his earlier pleas.

“I did. It’s good. But you gotta admit it sounds horrible when you describe it.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess it does. But you weren’t stupid. Never stupid.”

“I was pretty stupid about Christmas that first time,” Clint said, and he felt Phil shaking against him. Clint’s tac suit was a lot warmer than the coat Phil was wearing, and the temperature was probably below freezing. Clint was definitely worried.

“Not your fault, you know that. You hadn’t celebrated Christmas since you were six.”

“True. True. But remember the tree? I was going to surprise you with a cut tree and ended up with a ball of dirt sitting on your apartment floor. You had to replace the carpet after Christmas.” Clint recalled with a grin the look of shock on Phil’s face when he walked on Clint trying to balance the tree on the ball of roots and dirt without a stand or anything. “No one told me I was supposed to get a stand.”

“Or that you didn’t get a cut tree; you got a live tree.”

“We did get to plant it out front after the new year, so that was good. But then I even tried to make decorations.” Clint ran his hand over Phil’s cheek and Phil sighed deeply.

“I should have insisted on no tinsel. Tinsel was a bad idea,” Phil said.

Clint laughed. “I still like it, though. I just learned moderation.”

“For a certain definition of moderation,” Phil said, and Clint thought maybe his voice was steadier.  He shifted Phil in his lap, tried to get a better grip on him.  Phil groaned. “Clint. It’s too cold. I can’t feel my hands.”

“Okay, Phil,” Clint said as he grabbed Phil’s hands and unzipped his jacket. He pulled Phil’s hands to his jacket and pushed them underneath so that Phil’s palms were pressed against Clint’s t-shirt and chest.  They sat quietly for a while before Clint remembered that talking was probably best. “Mulled wine. Remember that?”

Phil laughed weakly. “Yeah. I had no idea there were so many variations.”

“Russian was a bad choice,” Clint said, and he tucked Phil’s hands under his arms, pressing Phil’s chest to his.

“Natasha didn’t think so,” Phil said, and Clint tucked Phil’s head against Clint’s neck.

“She’s not the one who had four cups before dinner on Christmas Eve.” Clint sighed at the memory. “I wanted to enjoy that dinner.”

“Natasha and I enjoyed it.”

Clint laughed again, “Yeah. I know. You took pictures.” There were pictures of Clint with mistletoe hanging from his mouth, reindeer antlers on his head, and a glassy, goofy look on his face in all of them.  

They got quiet again, and then Phil coughed into Clint’s jacket.

“Christmas morning was nice,” Phil said when his cough died off.

Clint pulled Phil close again. “Yeah. Yeah, it was. You outdid yourself.” There had been a pile of presents under the tree all wrapped perfectly and stacked neatly. Phil had made breakfast for them before Clint woke up, and there was soft Christmas music playing in the background.  “I was kind of baffled by that, too.”

“I wanted it to be perfect. Just,” Phil said, and Clint ran his hands through Phil’s hair.

“What?” Clint asked gently.

“I thought I could wrap twenty-eight years of Christmases into one Christmas morning. I was the one being stupid.”

“You were being wonderful. I got overwhelmed is all. Who would do that for me?” Clint had practically curled into a ball on one corner of their couch and hadn’t moved for an hour. He was so happy to be sharing Christmas with Phil and wanted it to be perfect, too, but the idea of it actually working out seemed absolutely terrifying when Clint saw all of the things Phil had done.

“Someone who loved you,” Phil said, his voice cold and airy again.

The sound of a helicopter suddenly filled Clint’s ears, and he hugged Phil tightly. “Our sled is here,” he said, and Phil just went boneless against him. “Come on, Phil. Let’s go home and get ready for Christmas.”

Phil nodded against him and pulled his hands from Clint’s jacket as a team came around the corner of the barn. “No tinsel this year,” he mumbled as Clint pulled him to his feet.

“Okay. Okay, Phil. No tinsel this year. Come on,” he answered, and he guided Phil to the helicopter, got him buckled in with a heavy blanket wrapped tightly around him, and rubbed his hands all the way to back to base.


End file.
